A Stand Against the General Opinion
by Make A Choice. Shine On
Summary: Darius is intoxicating for the same reasons he's infuriating: his insulting voice, his spiteful glare, his constantly visible attitude of stoic hatred for the world. Despising him is a dangerous addiction Garen has entertained since their very first quarter together, and a mishap during Garen's pledge ceremony causes this addiction to take an unexpectedly intimate turn. College AU
1. Chapter 1

Garen had inhaled enough artificial cinnamon scent to make him sick for a week. Either the department store employees had an inane amount of the fragrance circulating through the air vents, or he had sniffed that holiday candle a little too hard earlier, but he doubted that a single candle could pack that amount of punch. His headache was getting worse by the minute.

It had started out as a sick feeling in his stomach which gradually morphed into a sense of inevitable dread. The more he thought about his impending fate, the more his mind wanted to reject it. He kept telling himself it was for the sake of the pledge. A one-time dare which wouldn't follow him past his worst enemy's doorstep on Christmas Eve.

But the more he thought about it, the closer he came to realizing that this was the type of action that _would_ follow him throughout his college career. The last time he had talked to Darius was to chew him out for calling someone an imbecile, and every preceding conversation between them had occurred in a similar way. If Garen broke the cycle of seething antagonism here, the bastard would never let him live it down. _Never. _Or at least, not for the two and a half years remaining before graduation.

Two and a half years of suffering in return for entrance to Jarvan's social fraternity. Was it worth it? Most definitely not. But he couldn't let down his best friend; not after he had come this far already.

He only wished he had resisted rushing for one more quarter. The winter pledge was formulated in the sickly sweet spirit of Christmas: give a gift to your worst enemy. No gags, and no snarky comments. They would videotape him from the side while he did it; behavior that was anything less than cordial would disqualify him, or so they said. It was the stupidest pledge ceremony he had ever heard of, but apparently past years had proven it pretty hilarious, so they held it as tradition.

There had been no way to claim a different worst enemy because Jarvan shared too many classes with him. Jarvan witnessed their squabbles daily, and the glares they exchanged as though they were equally offended by the fact that they shared the same air. And Jarvan couldn't keep his mouth shut to save his life.

When Garen found his sister and her friends in the same candle aisle they had been in ten minutes ago, he couldn't fathom how they were still smiling the way they were instead of puking. Maybe there were drugs mixed into the wax.

She caught him looking gloomy and dumbfounded at the end of the aisle, and asked, "Having any luck?"

"No," he sighed. He hadn't told her about the pledge. She was under the impression he was looking for something to give Xin, his roommate, and Katarina, who had been his homecoming date this year. She was a nice girl. Feisty, but in a nice way. She texted him daily but always disappeared mid-conversation because she was so busy with club activities. Every once in awhile she would appear on his doorstep, exhausted after soccer practice, promptly fuck him, and sleep there for a few hours before departing again at ungodly hours of the morning. But that was as far as their relationship went. The last time he had tried asking her what the hell all this was about, she had shut him up with a blowjob and marathon sex.

While Janna and Ezreal were discussing what 'Summer Breeze' _actually_ smelled like in the background, Lux approached him and put her finger to her chin. After a moment of thought, she took his arm and started walking.

"I've got just the thing."

"What about…?" He gestured toward the duo in the candle aisle they were emigrating from.

"They'll be fine. They can argue for ages."

"What's your idea, then?"

"A book and some aftershave. It's a typical guys gift, you can't go wrong," she replied with a confident smile. Garen considered giving the aforementioned objects to Darius as opposed to Xin, and figured they would do, if only because he didn't have any better ideas. "And for Kat…"

He noticed that they were heading into the lingerie section, and stopped in his tracks.

"Luxanna, no."

"Oh, come on! What you two have going is pathetic. You need to show her that you're serious."

"Sexy lingerie is hardly a good way to tell someone you want more out of her than sex."

"Silly," she responded nonchalantly as she picked up a box containing a racy red lingerie set, complete with bra, lacy boyshorts, garter belt, stockings, and a short silk nightrobe. "Giving an expensive gift like this sends a completely different message."

"What message?"

He would have followed up with, '_I want to dress you up, my sex kitten?'_ if he wouldn't have felt completely obscene afterward.

"That you like her enough to spoil her."

She placed the lid on the box, which was tacky cardboard and would need to be re-wrapped, and placed it in his reluctant arms. He wanted to tell Lux that he _didn't_ actually want to spoil Katarina; he just wanted to know why she insisted on maintaining a sexual relationship with him when they had never verbally discussed anything beyond friendship, and if he was getting some free stimulation along the way, then so be it.

"Lux-"

"No buts. Trust me. She'll like it."

And with that, she headed toward the Christmas section containing gifts especially for men.

There was no point in arguing once Luxanna Crownguard had made up her mind. Garen looked down at the box and shrugged.

_What's the worst that could happen?_

* * *

><p>It was the typical college apartment. Top floor of a two-story complex, curtains drawn, completely unadorned porch area. This one didn't have an iota of holiday spirit. Not a wreath, or a string of lights inside the front window. Nothing.<p>

The fraternity had found the address for him and driven him here. Jarvan and a couple of other fraternity brothers were hiding in the bushes below with a tripod, snickering to each other while causing a completely unreasonable amount of leaf-rustling. He couldn't imagine that they would get a great angle on the shot, but they were certainly close enough to hear everything - and record Garen's embarrassment for all of posterity.

He cleared his throat loudly, casting a warning glance their way. Once they had quieted down long enough to give him a thumbs up, he took a miserable breath and knocked on the door.

When Darius opened it, he was dressed in a grey wifebeater, dark sweatpants, and his typical stone-carved expression of disgust. If Garen wasn't mistaken, Christmas Eve had him feeling _more_ spiteful and not the other way around. He didn't say a word. He glanced between Garen and the gift-wrapped box in Garen's hands as if to say, _Are you fucking kidding me?_

"Merry Christmas," Garen monotoned, holding out the box.

"What the hell is this?"

_What the hell does it look like?_

"A Christmas present," Garen answered flatly, biting back every impulse he had to punch this asshole in the face right here and now, since there weren't any school authorities around to expel them. Unfortunately, he had a pledge to uphold.

"What is it, a time bomb?"

_If it were up to me it would be._

"No." He shoved the box out in front of him. "Just take it."

Darius did. "I hope you're not expecting anything back. The only thing I have for you is a door."

"I-"

The door slammed in his face, and suddenly he got the joke.

Jarvan and the others started guffawing, but Garen couldn't see what was so funny about making a complete fool out of yourself in front of the one person you wished you didn't have to. That was the point of these pledge ceremonies, he supposed. To prove that the fraternity meant more to you than your honor - which it really didn't, in Garen's case.

He descended the staircase to be greeted by a barrage of bro-hugs and back-pattings.

"Congratulations, you're an official member of Phi Kappa Tau!"

"That wasn't so bad, was it? The guy looked miserable. You did a good deed."

Garen tried to think of it that way, but it was hard to imagine that there was anything more to Darius than a deep-seated hatred of all mankind. You can't change a person like that, he figured. So he smiled and tried to forget the impending humiliation as they walked back to the car to attend the afterparty.

* * *

><p>Lux was at the door bright and early the next morning to drive them back home for Christmas. She lectured him all the way there for having a hangover, which only made it worse rather than better, and knocked him in the head on their parents' front porch only to greet the pair with sugarsweet enthusiasm when they opened the door.<p>

Sometimes he thought that she deserved to be the favorite, what with her impeccable manners and her natural proficiency in everything the Crownguards considered admirable. They were the old-fashioned type; they had raised their children to sit up straight and keep their elbows off the table since the day they were old enough to sit in a proper dining chair. Even so, Garen would come home with his knees covered in mud while Lux sat in the parlor reading, and Garen had a vague interest in politics while Lux could out-talk him any day, and _she_ was studying to become a physicist.

She was less than perfect, but they didn't know that. From the favorable manner with which she responded to gifts of teddy bears and unflattering spring dresses, they would have never been able to guess the things she wore out to nightclubs, or the way she acted when things didn't go her way. She had a gift for sociability, while Garen had a tendency to wear his heart out on his sleeve whether he wanted to or not.

They gave him a hi-tech sports watch and several sets of businesswear, which would be useful when he started seriously working towards a career in political science. He wasn't sure yet exactly what he wanted to do. Jarvan had plans to run for the presidency, and he consistently urged Garen to work with him as his right-hand man (and maybe one day, vice-president).

All in all, it was a pleasant day, and his hangover was gone by the end of the feast they called Christmas brunch. Relatives came and went, and he practiced asking open-ended questions, actually getting to know the people that he would previously forget every year. Turns out his elder cousin had just become mayor where he lived. He spent a lot of time talking to said cousin about what it took to be a politician, and about how stupid so many of the office's predecessors were.

He arrived home late the next evening to a pleasantly empty apartment. Xin must have still been with relatives. Just as his head hit the pillow, his phone buzzed.

It was the last person he had expected to ever receive a text from, let alone a friendly one. The only reason they had each other's numbers was because they had been grouped together for a project in their first quarter of college, before they knew how much they hated each other. It had been an oral presentation. Darius had done zero of the preparation work, but when presentation day came, he grabbed the stage first and performed the best presentation of the day, which boiled Garen's blood because not only had he essentially taken credit for the entire group's work, but because he had proven just how much better at this he already was than everyone else. The worst part was that when he sat back down afterward, he resumed his usual routine of glaring at everyone in unamused silence, retaining not a scrap of the passionate and well-versed presenter he had left behind in the front of the classroom. It didn't make any sense.

That had been the beginning of a long and tempestuous rivalry which, Garen admitted, had been initiated by himself the day he was walking behind Darius and coughed 'asshole' loudly enough for the entire hallway to hear.

_Hello,_ the text said. Garen wasn't going to answer, until another one came shortly afterward.

_Did you have a pleasant Christmas?_

_Why do you care?_

_Just wondering._

_Yes, I did._

When an answer didn't come for several minutes, he got up and made herbal tea, which was his usual solution for being unable to sleep. He had been baffled into discomfort, and despite how _little _he tried to convince himself he cared, he wanted to know why he was suddenly receiving texts from someone who hadn't texted him in more than a year, at midnight two days after Christmas.

It was the stupid gift.

When he came back with a warm mug and a mind full of irritation, another text was waiting.

_Mine sucked, thanks for asking._

_I didn't ask._

And that was the end of the conversation. He went to sleep wondering why the bastard thought he cared whether he had a good Christmas or not. Apparently, nothing says affection like aftershave and a book titled _How To Be a Man_.

He thought it sounded more like an insult than a gift, coming from him.

* * *

><p>The day before school came back into session, Katarina arrived at his apartment armed with her unwrapped gift box and murderous intent in her eyes. She had him up against the wall by his collar in seconds, not bothering to close the door behind her. If he remembered right, she had gone home for the holidays as well and had just returned today.<p>

"What the hell is this supposed to mean?" she snarled, holding up the closed box in her left hand.

Shit. She didn't like it.

"It was, uh, Lux's idea…"

"Are you _serious?_ You think you can pass the blame off on your sister for a stupid idea like this?!"

He was lost for words as she glared at him, throwing the box to the floor, where the lid came askew and wrapping tissue flew out.

"Is this your way of coming out of the closet, or did you just want to insult me?"

"What?" he responded in confusion, glancing downward at the box. It was barely open, but he thought he could see the end of a bottle inside. A bottle of…aftershave.

"Oh, god," he breathed.

Lux had done the wrapping for him, knowing how likely he was to screw it up with his "huge barbarian hands". She must have gotten the gifts mixed up on accident. Which meant that Darius had the lingerie.

He had given Darius a box of sexy lingerie on Christmas Eve.

He felt like he was going to throw up.

"Oh, god," he repeated, taking a deep breath in.

"What?" Katarina retorted, though her grip on his collar loosened. "Spit it out."

"You have the wrong gift. I'm so sorry, Katarina. I-"

"_Seriously?!_" she snapped, and he was shoved against the wall again with a surprising amount of force. "You think you can get away with this by calling it an accident?! It's just one excuse after another. I had no idea you were so _despicable_. Consider yourself dead to me."

"Katarina, please allow me to explain!" he called out to her, but she was storming down the walkway with no intentions of ever coming back again. He would likely only earn himself a black eye if he tried to follow her before she calmed down. It felt horrible, though.

This entire situation felt horrible.

His roommate's voice came floating in from the other room. "Is everything alright?"

Xin was peeking around the corner with a bewildered look on his face. He was a foreign exchange student, so he didn't talk much, but when he did talk he made himself out to be nothing but considerate.

"Not quite," he responded glumly, picking the dented box up off the floor. Upon further inspection, it did, indeed, contain a bottle of aftershave and Glenn O'Brien's comedic guidelines on how to be a man. He didn't want to imagine the look on Katarina's face when she had opened it, nor did he want to imagine how she must have felt for the remainder of the holidays.

"I need to fix this."

"Let me know if there's anything I can do," Xin said, staring at Garen perplexedly for a moment before moving to retreat back into his room.

"Hey, Xin."

"Yes?"

Garen placed the lid on the box, straightened it out as best he could, and walked over to hand it to the timid young man. "Merry Christmas."

"Thank you, Garen," came the overly zealous response, along with a smile wider than Garen had seen all quarter. Xin made a small bow before closing the door.

_What a good guy,_ he thought.

Unlike the intolerable asswad he got in his car to go visit and offer an explanation to, who must have currently believed he was asking for some sort of sick, twisted booty call.

What a mess.

* * *

><p>Darius wasn't glaring when he opened the door, dressed in a pair of black jeans and a wifebeater one shade darker than the last. He was almost smiling. <em>Almost.<em>

"You came," he said.

"I'm here to offer an apology," Garen replied, but before he could continue, Darius had stepped aside for him, revealing a living room littered carelessly in clothes and old dishes.

"Come in."

"I'd rather not."

"Come in," he repeated, and the sharp edge had returned to his voice.

Garen hesitated before stepping inside. The stale smell he was certain he would have been greeted with was disguised by a powerful air freshener the scent of mangoes. The place - not surprisingly - looked like a pigsty, but smelled like a tropical paradise.

"I'm not here to stay. I just wanted to explain that-"

Darius closed the door with an obnoxious amount of force and walked past him down the hallway. It seemed that he had no intentions of listening to whatever Garen had to say, and that wouldn't do.

"Darius," Garen remarked firmly, not moving from where he stood. He received no answer. Darius had presumably gone inside his room; he had invited Garen inside only to ignore the fact of his existence.

Suddenly Garen remembered with certainty why he hated this guy so much, and blatant disregard for others was only _one_ of the reasons.

He stormed down the hallway to the open doorway he had watched Darius walk through, all the while grumbling, "Darius, the gift I gave you-"

Upon reaching the doorway he crashed into the bulk of man carrying the very gift he spoke of, still arranged neatly in its box. "This? I was under the impression you wanted me to wear it for you."

"I have no such intentions."

"Good, because _you're_ going to wear it for me."

"_What?"_

He shoved the package into Garen's chest as though his instructions were clear as day and equally acceptable, narrowing his eyes in challenge. The two of them were almost the same height, but from here Darius looked taller, and his obvious physical capability was accentuated by his choice of shirt. To be honest, Garen wasn't sure which one of them would win in a fight. Both of them spent half their free time at the gym and the other half participating in relatively violent club sports, but Garen supposed that having won first place in the Regional MMA Tournament gave the other man an advantage.

"I'm not putting that on," Garen said scathingly, his fists clenching by his sides. "I'm not sure why you would want me to in the first place, douchebag."

"You wouldn't want the entire school knowing you gave me lingerie for Christmas, right? I'm sure you know my brother. He's got a pretty big mouth."

"_You_ have a brother? Gee, I feel bad for him."

"His name is Draven."

Garen stared at him in disbelief. The Draven he was thinking of had enrolled as a freshman this fall and was already notorious schoolwide for pranks and womanizing. The funny part about those types of people was that they were popular. Popular enough to spread a rumor around the entire campus in the course of a day.

"You wouldn't," Garen growled through gritted teeth, but he already knew the answer, and a deep sense of dread was sinking down through his midsection. It was too late now to take back the mistake. How could he have expected someone like Darius to do anything with this situation but evil?

"I gave you the wrong gift," he muttered sheepishly.

"Do you think the greedy ears of ten thousand university students care about the details?"

"No," he responded, taking the box with an angry jerk.

"The bathroom is down that way," Darius informed him nonchalantly, pushing past to return to the living room, where he splayed himself comfortably out on the couch and turned the TV on.

For a moment Garen hesitated there in the hallway, and he was about to ask _why_ when he grasped the obvious answer: humiliation, pure and simple. He thought the pledge ceremony had been bad. That was _nothing_ compared to this.

He wanted to blame Lux, but it wasn't her fault. Not really. People made mistakes. It was Garen who had decided to fuel this thread of hatred for the past year and a half. Darius was undeniably the most impolite, self-serving, disheartening isle of desolation Garen had ever met, but that didn't mean he had to let it affect him. He could have accepted from the start that someone this loathsome actually _existed_, instead of doing everything he could to try to prove something otherwise, to find some sort of reason behind it.

After all this time he still hadn't found a reason. Maybe it was time to get this over with and then give up.

He walked to the bathroom, closed the door, and glared at himself in the mirror, trying to imagine beforehand what he would look like in women's lingerie. He was a 225 pound hunk of muscle with a scar on his lower abdomen and a perfect side-sweep he was a little too proud of. This lingerie was meant to fit on a woman half his size. His balls were aching already.

The bottoms fit, although the seams were ready to burst. The garter belt didn't reach past his thighs, so he scrapped it along with the stockings, and he didn't even bother with the bra. He was wearing lacy red underwear that cut off his dick's blood circulation and a matching short-sleeved silk nightrobe that, fortunately, had been designed loose-fitting, so on him it was extremely snug and fell to his upper thighs.

He left his clothes in the corner of the bathroom floor and emerged red-faced and regretting his own existence. Darius was watching _Stargate: Atlantis_. He must have decided he was more comfortable without a shirt on, because it was draped haphazardly over the backrest, and he had a can of beer in his hand. No wonder the place was such a mess.

"I'm...dressed," Garen muttered from behind the couch, but Darius didn't turn around to look. He simply raised his free hand and beckoned, so Garen trudged around to the front. "What the hell do you want from me?"

Darius sat up, placed his beer on the side table, and grabbed the front of the nightrobe. An ordinary person wouldn't have been able to break Garen's balance, but this man did it like it was nothing, and he did it out of nowhere, because half a second before he yanked his eyes had been glued to the television screen.

When Garen fell into his lap, their eyes met, and perhaps that was the only reason he didn't throw a punch right then and there: he saw something other than the cold, lifeless gaze he had seen for the past year and a half. He saw calm scrutiny. He saw the hint of a smile, and the mischievous inklings of some sort of scheme.

It occurred to him that it couldn't be a good scheme, especially with the position that they were in, one on top of the other and Darius with a fistful of red silk that was too tight not to start slipping off of Garen's shoulders. He tried to pull away, but Darius's grip was strong, and suddenly he was under another person's physical control for the first time since he'd started working out in middle school. Even when he grabbed the huge fist and dug his fingernails in, the guy didn't appear to feel a thing. If he tried harder he could get away, but in this unstable position that would only make him fall further, and touching skin was the last thing he wanted.

"Let me go," Garen said, one scathing word after another.

"No," Darius replied simply, tightening his grip on the silk rather than loosening it. They were inches apart.

"Darius-"

"You're blushing," he remarked with a smirk. "Who was it for?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The gift. Who was it meant for?"

"That's none of your goddamn business."

"It is, unless you want my brother to talk."

"Katarina."

"I know her. She was one of Draven's group leaders at new student orientation. He fucked her afterward."

It was by impulse that his fist flew forward, but Darius cocked his head to the side so that it landed harmlessly in the couch cushions. That, he honestly hadn't expected.

"Is that true, or are you just saying it to piss me off?"

"You decide," Darius responded calmly. "Whatever I tell you won't matter, because you already have a pre-conceived idea of me as some sort of devilspawn."

"You gave me the evidence yourself."

Darius gave him a look as if to say, 'try me'.

"Not a single action you take is meant to benefit anyone but yourself. For the past year and a half I've watched you do whatever it takes to get a good grade, yet you walk into class every day with a storm-cloud hanging over your head. When people try to talk to you, you unfailingly find ways to insult them. You steal unclaimed coffee from the Starbucks counter and pocket money that people drop. Even now, you're holding me here against my will, blackmailing me because I made an honest mistake."

Garen expected retaliation, as would be the typical response of an enemy being called out for their offenses. Argument, denial, physical recoil, anything. Instead, Darius unflinchingly remarked, "You've paid a lot of attention to me, haven't you?"

Either he actually _accepted_ the blatant social inadequacies of his own behavior, or he hadn't been listening to Garen at all.

It was true, though. Garen had devoted a considerable portion of the time he spent in Darius's presence since the oral presentation directing hatred through his eyesockets, and another portion of his time at home complaining about his countless misdemeanors to Lux. He wasn't the type to complain, and she knew that. _He_ was the only person vile enough to complain about.

"They say that in order to hate someone, you have to love them first," Darius said, and Garen honestly couldn't tell whether he was joking or not. He had withdrawn his fist and was attempting to pry the guy's fingers apart, to no avail. This stupidly close proximity was getting on his last nerves. He could smell the beer on his breath, and it didn't mix well with tropical mangoes.

"You're dreaming if you think I want anything more from you than justice for twenty years' worth of _shit_," Garen spat back.

"Are you sure it's the injustice that makes you so angry? The stolen three-dollar coffees, the twenty that some rich kid dropped?" Darius yanked him another inch closer, and suddenly he was aware of a hand on his waist. "Or is it the fact that I've outshone you since our very first quarter?"

"It's the fact that you're a dishonest bully that this world would do better without."

He chuckled humorlessly. "You sound like my nonexistent mother."

Just like that, Garen had happened upon an inkling of a reason, but before he could delve any further, Darius continued. "Look at yourself, Garen. Where do you think this situation leads?"

He looked at himself as though he were a witness rather than a participant. He was sitting on top of a shirtless musclehead while dressed in overtight Christmas lingerie, half of which was already falling off. Darius had no intentions of letting him walk around for awhile and leave. Next he would ask for him to get on his knees, and after that…

Darius let go and told him to sit down on the couch.

"What?"

"You heard me."

Garen sat, and Darius knelt down between his knees.

"I'll tell you a secret," he said, pulling loose the tie that held the nightrobe together at the waist. "I've found you attractive since day one. You're the one who chose to hate me."

"I'm straight," Garen responded, shocked and relieved but a little too distressed to express either. Unfortunately, the right kind of physical touch was all it took to make the body react, and as Darius rubbed Garen winced from the pain of increasingly constrictive fabric against a hardening cock. "Stop it."

"No."

"This is rape."

"Let me blow you, or the whole school will find out that you blew me."

"Shit," he uttered, half in response to the statement, and half in response to the warm mouth he felt against the outside of the fabric, which was thin enough to feel invisible but had all the elastic power to pinch harder by the second. He laid his head back against the couch, trying to imagine that it was anyone but who it was.

One time. He just had to endure one time, and then this would all be over.

But it wasn't so much endurance as it was impatience, as soon as the overtight panties were pushed down his hips and the pain in his groin was replaced by a hot, wet mask of pleasure.

He was moving, slowly at first, and then quickly, and all Garen could remember thinking was that this guy wasn't an amateur, _god,_ he knew exactly where to put his tongue and where to place his fingers, at what rate to speed up and just when to slow down and start teasing again before he came. It lasted four minutes that felt like forty, and that was only because Darius _made_ it so he would last that long.

He wiped what remained on his lips with the back of his hand, and then sat down beside Garen, sideways against the armrest. "You can leave now, but if you want more where that came from…"

Garen turned his head and glared at him. "I can't _believe_ you."

He was smiling, his massive arms spread out across the arm and backrest, comfortable as could be. He retorted, "What is there not to believe?"

There was too much on Garen's mind for him to come up with a smart-aleck answer, so he pulled the panties up, walked quickly to the bathroom, and changed, leaving half of the lingerie in the sink and the other half on the floor to match the rest of the home's organization. As he left the apartment, Darius didn't even glance at him. He was back to watching what, if Garen remembered right, was the season finale.


	2. Chapter 2

When Garen entered his first discussion section of spring quarter, Darius was sitting there in the front row, his head resting sideways on his hand and his eyes occupied with that same dull glare that had been his standard for the past year. The seats directly around him remained empty. Garen positioned himself in the furthest possible location from Darius, not realizing until Jarvan poked him in the back that he hadn't acknowledged any of the room's other occupants. It had been a classroom full of empty faces and a single man.

"Hey," Jarvan said, peeking around his shoulder. "Is it just me or is your face unusually red?"

"Shut it," he retorted.

"Wake up on the wrong side of the bed, my friend?"

"I'm just tired."

In fact, Garen had woken up on top of raging hard-on, and he was still trying to convince himself that he was remembering his dreams wrong.

"We're all tired. Too much Christmas turkey, I suppose. Look at Quinn."

Garen did. She was passed out on top of her desk and class hadn't even started yet. It brought an amused smile to his face, which faded the moment the professor spoke and his gaze passed once more over the dark-haired male in the front row.

One time, he had told himself, and one time it had been. Yet he hadn't gone a minute since without remembering it, regretting it, wanting it, regretting wanting it, and cursing himself for being such a goddamn idiot. It had occurred to him during the sleepless night after the incident that if Darius really wanted to, he could easily decide to spread any rumor regardless of the deal they had made. He wasn't the type to keep his word. Garen was practically holding his breath, waiting for someone next to him to lean over and whisper, _Is it true that you and Darius…you know?_

But no one paid any more attention to him that class than they had last quarter, and for the first time _he_ paid attention to Darius with something other than mindless hatred in his thoughts. He kept remembering what it had felt like - not what it _looked_ like, since he hadn't been looking - but the simultaneous bliss and mental turmoil, the humiliation that had turned to confusion, and finally led to an entire change of heart.

He had been shocked into seeing more than a single-minded brute; someone whose sole motivation was to demean others wouldn't have gotten on his knees for someone else. Not unless it was part of a larger plan, but Garen doubted that. Giving blowjobs to another guy wasn't a casual thing, especially for someone who looked and acted like Darius did.

It had to mean something.

_I've found you attractive since day one. You're the one who chose to hate me._

The answer was there in those words, but it didn't make any sense to Garen, so he spent that class period trying to decipher a declaration that was already crystal clear.

Peace was kept, for a change, until he walked outside and saw Katarina chatting with Darius, recently emerged from a nearby class. He wasn't sure if Darius was actually more acquainted with her than he had let on or if Katarina just wanted to befriend him because Garen hated him, but either way, he didn't like it.

There was no point in getting himself involved, so he and Jarvan kept walking, at least until he walked close enough to hear Darius saying, "You should've seen what he got _me_ for Christmas."

He panicked, and purposely shoved his shoulder into Darius as he walked past to disrupt the conversation. He couldn't have word getting out, he absolutely _couldn't_, especially to Katarina.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I couldn't see you with your enormous ego blocking the way."

Despite his declaration being directed at the man beside her, Kat was the first to answer. She crossed her arms, glaring at him. "He didn't do anything to you, so what's your problem, douchebag?"

_As a matter of fact, he _did _do something to me._

"I told you, Katarina, that was an accident-"

"She doesn't want to hear it, Crownguard," Darius said, and Garen couldn't help but notice that last night he'd addressed him by his first name instead. "Get lost."

Just as he was about to raise his fist, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Jarvan didn't have to say anything to get his message across. This was not the time or place for a fight.

As he swallowed his anger and turned away, he felt Darius lean close to him for a split second, close enough to mutter beside his ear, "If you have a problem, feel free to address it with me later."

And a moment later, at normal distance and audible volume, "By the way, I was talking about my _brother's_ Christmas present."

Then his friend had a firm grip on his arm and they were paces away, and his face was flushed all over again. There was no way Jarvan would have missed what had happened, or be able to look over his current expression of flustered indignation without thinking twice. He released Garen's arm and cast him a questioning look. "What did you do to piss off Katarina?"

Relief washed over him, at least until the next question was asked.

"And why has Darius got your knickers in such an especially tight bunch?"

In his frustration, he was half-tempted to blurt out, '_Because he pulled them down and sucked my dick last night.'_

But he didn't think Jarvan would believe him anyhow, so he ignored the second question and answered the first. "I gave her the wrong gift and she doesn't believe me."

"When you walked into class you stood in front of the door for a good second just glaring at him, and your face turned bright red. The same shade as it is right now." Jarvan was smiling. "What exactly was it that he whispered in your ear?"

Garen stopped dead in the middle of the walkway, inhaling deep breaths.

"I sort of doubt it was a death threat," Jarvan continued cheerfully, pausing in front of him.

"Jarvan," he responded, breathless in exasperation. "I need to ask you an honest question, and you're not allowed to ask why I'm asking."

"Deal."

"What if Jericho Swain were to turn around and tell you he was attracted to you, and then threaten to spread an absolutely heinous rumor about you if you didn't…if you didn't let him…if you didn't give him one kiss. Would you do it?"

The previously harmless smile spread across Jarvan's entire face, exhibiting a corrosive mixture of shock, amusement, and horror, but mostly the former two. When he finally composed himself, and answered, still smiling in awe, "It would depend on a number of factors. Am I also attracted to him? Just how bad would it be if the rumor got out?"

"As of last night, yes," Garen replied. "Bad. Pack-up-and-transfer-immediately bad."

"Then, yes. I would do it. Reluctantly, but I would."

"There you have it," he said before picking back up his pace, and suddenly he was wondering why he thought 'share a mutual kiss' sounded better than 'unwillingly receive a blowjob'.

The shock didn't seem to have worn off yet, because Jarvan was still snickering as he followed. "Hey Garen, I had no idea that you were-"

"I thought we agreed not to ask any more questions," he interrupted, though he had spent a good portion of the morning considering that very question. The only other time he had felt physical attraction towards another male was for Jarvan, upon their first meeting in the locker rooms, and that had quickly faded through conversation. Jarvan was sociable, kind-hearted, and full of unwavering determination. One of the reasons they got along so well as friends was because they agreed on so many topics of life and morality. But, all-in-all, Jarvan was boring. He was a social creature with perfect manners (like Garen's sister), even while drunk, and he had a picture-perfect life laid out in front of him. There was nothing more to him than the impeccable surface, or at least, he kept his other side so well-hidden that his best friend hadn't seen any sign of it existing for an entire year.

Darius, on the other hand, infuriated him. Darius managed to set him off just by being in the same room; every roughly spoken word that came out of his mouth made Garen's fists clench, but before that, it drew him close enough to throw insults. Every spark of anger pulled him in, every confrontation built an attachment that he was too prideful to ever admit to. Darius was an enigma, and most importantly, he made Garen feel _more_ than anyone else in this world. More anger, more hate, more passion.

More lust. Because what had happened was so unthinkable that it was intoxicating to think about, again and again and again, beyond his control. He would be lying if he tried to say he hadn't imagined Darius sucking him off right there in that classroom, simply because it had happened once. His imagination kept recreating the scene as if by impulse, and each time he couldn't decide whether he wanted it to go away or not.

Easy fix. Immersion therapy.

_If you have a problem, feel free to address it with me later._

Let it happen again.

"For the record, I _am_ straight," he declared half-heartedly.

"For now," Jarvan teased, but Garen almost imperceptibly nodded to himself.

_For now._

* * *

><p>The evening had been too uneventful for Garen not to show up. The man behind the door was smiling again with that almost-smile, which seemed unnatural on his face. He looked better scowling, Garen thought. He looked better when he was angry enough to get in a fist-fight with him, or to have hate sex across the entire room - whichever way you wanted to look at it.<p>

"I hate you," was the first thing he said, and his stern gaze showed that he meant it. "I'm here to discuss something with you. Is anyone home?"

"Just me."

"Good."

They must have ran out of mango scent, because this time the place smelled overwhelmingly of coconuts and was scattered with a different variety of clothes and empty beer cans, though in similar amounts. Garen wouldn't have been surprised if the lingerie was still sitting where he left it in the bathroom sink, soaked in soap and water and god knows what else, simply because the inhabitants of this home appeared to be too lazy to care about cleaning anything up properly.

"You kept your word about not telling anyone," he began, seating himself tensely on the edge of the couch, with his hands clasped in front of him. Darius remained standing as he searched for a different channel, his black tee tight against his chest. Garen tried not to notice, but he did. The annoyance he felt at not being given full attention didn't help his nerves, either. "Why?"

"Why have so little faith in me?"

"I've watched you make deals with our classmates only to purposely break them minutes after they were made."

"You put yourself on the same level as them?"

"I-" he started, but the question had taken him off-guard. It only seemed natural that an enemy should lie at an even lower standing than an acquaintance, but in actuality, the opposite was true. An enemy held a far greater importance in a person's life. He knew that now better than anyone. "Even so, you should want nothing more than to humiliate me."

As Darius placed the remote down on the coffee table, he passed Garen a stern sideways glance. "Did you really come here to interrogate me about our relationship?"

Garen flushed. The guy knew full well that his statement implied they were _in a relationship_ to begin with.

"Your intentions are unclear, and it's making me uncomf-"

Before he could finish the sentence, Darius was climbing on top of him and he tried to deflect the huge man with a shove, but there were hands tight around his wrists, holding them back against the cushions. This time he could escape if he wanted to, but for whatever reason, the effort didn't seem worth it.

"Don't be a dumbass, Garen. I made my intentions clear when I told you that you're attractive."

"You're my _enemy._"

"So?" he muttered. He was close, and he didn't smell like beer this time; he smelled like clean laundry and really nice cologne, which must have meant he cared at least a little about his public appearance. His face was sturdy and rugged, and from here Garen could see a thin scar slashing diagonally through the edge of his eye that he hadn't noticed before. It was subtle, just a single line a shade lighter than the rest of his skin.

"How did you get that?" Garen asked, the direction of his glance signifying clearly what he was referring to.

"Knife fight. Don't ask," he responded, and it just added another layer of darkness to the veil of a person that he already was. Garen wasn't having the obscurity anymore.

"How did you get it?"

"I thought I said don't ask."

"I thought I asked."

"Kiss me."

"How did you get it?"

"Kiss me, and I'll tell you."

He didn't even remember the conversation with Jarvan before doing it. This moment existed in and of itself, just the two of them in a cluttered college living room, and Darius tasted like fire with a hint of honey. He wasn't sure if the burning sensation was from something spicy earlier that day or if it was just his own unexplainable physical reaction to doing something that was unutterably wrong, but it added a nice touch. It made him greedy. It made him open his mouth and run his tongue along the lips he had often wanted sewn shut, but that was when Darius pulled away, his expression content and cocksure, and his grip still just as tight on Garen's wrists, pinching the skin ever so slightly.

"How did you get it?"

"I thought you hated me."

Garen pursed his lips shut, his brows furrowing in indignation. "You promised."

"Six years ago I lived in the city. Someone tried to mug me and I wasn't going to sit back and watch."

"You could have died," he said unhappily. He didn't like to think of others in danger. Not even Darius. _Especially_ Darius. He unconsciously thought of Darius as a punching bag reserved exclusively for himself, ready and waiting for the day that he got extremely angry. "Is your pride really worth your life?"

"My life isn't worth much, _clearly._"

Something about his tone shocked Garen, and made him think twice about what this conversation was really about. Perhaps it was the certainty of it, the declaration of worthlessness stated as if it were an absolute fact. It pissed him off, how someone could be so sure that they didn't matter, when in fact, _they did._

But there was a reason that Darius would believe something like that, and the only reason he would bother bringing it up was if it existed as a source of pain for him today.

"Is it true that you don't have a mother?"

Darius visibly bristled. His response was instant, practiced, maybe not for this specific topic but for any mention of anything involving his personal life. "Mind your own damn business."

"It's just a question, Darius. Is it true?"

He glanced away for a second before answering, and it was the first time Garen had witnessed any instance of vulnerability from the man. His body was visibly tense, the arm muscles strained and the veins taut against the underside of his skin. His response was quiet, but hadn't lost its rocky lilt, which made everything he said sound something like a threat. "I hardly remember her. I don't even know if she's dead or alive today."

"What about your father?"

"Same thing."

Acknowledging the answers was painful despite the fact that Garen had expected them beforehand. There was still a lot to the story that he didn't know, like why Darius had been orphaned or what the conditions throughout his life had been like, but those details would come as they were entrusted to him. What he _did_ know was that Darius hadn't had the luxury of proper role models, that in his younger years he hadn't had a father to pass the football to or a mother to pack his lunches and clean his scrapes, that he had gone his entire life with the false knowledge that he hadn't been worth taking care of.

Garen admired his parents as much as he sometimes despised them; he was who he was because of them, and he assumed that Darius was who he was partially due to a lack of them.

"I'm sorry," Garen said, his voice soft as he replaced his own childhood memories with images of a crowded orphanage, and his mother's face with an indistinguishable blur. "I can't imagine what it would be like… To lose someone that important."

At that moment his wrists were released, but Darius remained where he was, seated comfortably atop Garen's lap without moving any closer or further. Maybe they had been like this long enough that it didn't matter anymore, or maybe Garen was just starting to accept that he didn't mind.

"Like I said, I hardly knew her," Darius scoffed, as though it were an adequate reason not to care at all.

"That doesn't mean you didn't want to."

"Fuck you. I don't want to talk about this."

"Then what do you want?"

There was a pause as he raised his hand to Garen's jaw and moved in closer. He replied, "I want you to shut the hell up."

Then he breached the little remaining gap and forced the other to do just that, his lips hard and merciless unlike before - the lips of a man who wants to forget - and whatever resistance Garen had determined to put up since then was shattered in a second. He buried his fingers in Darius's hair and kissed back like he would never get the chance to again, because hell, maybe he wouldn't, and in fact it still didn't make sense that he'd even been offered the chance to do it once. He had never wanted this. He had never even thought about it to begin with.

Maybe that was exactly why he had never wanted it. He had never imagined what it would be like to take out all that anger on the very person who caused it without throwing a single punch. He had never thought of leaving a trail of bruises across that sturdy body with just his lips, had never pictured that defined back as an empty canvas to scratch bright red. He hadn't been very creative with his ideas on how to make Darius scream, but now…now, just the thought had him reeling.

Then he felt a warm hand against the bare skin of his hip, beneath his shirt, moving upward, and he came to his senses. They were both male, and despite how hard he was at the thought of everything else, he _wasn't_ about to have his backside violated. He grabbed the hand where it was, and broke the kiss, but found that he wasn't sure what to say. How could he admit that he wanted this, except without all the things that _this_ actually entailed? Including but not limited to: fucking your worst enemy, admitting to fucking your worst enemy, admitting to ever _wanting_ to fuck your worst enemy, and anal penetration.

"What?" Darius remarked irritably, respecting Garen's resistance physically but not verbally. "You want me to take you to dinner first? I'm not going to."

"You disrespectful piece of shit."

Darius smirked. "You're scared. I see it on your pathetic face."

"Are you trying to say you've done this before?"

"I'm offended that last night wasn't proof enough." He withdrew his hand from Garen's shirt and instead directed his strength toward pushing him sideways onto his back. There was some resistance, but not enough, and Garen immediately regretted it, because as Darius kissed him again he felt his jeans come undone and the warm pressure of a hand slide against his groin. He pushed half-heartedly against Darius's shoulders. The rough lips pulled away and said, "Cry rape again, slut." The pressure increased. "I dare you."

"Did you just- _nngh…_"

The suddenness of the pleasure was blinding. Darius had moved down his body and started sucking him off, just the way he had before except it was _better_ this time, better because he was simultaneously pissed and aroused at the name-calling, better because he had partially accepted that this was happening at all, better because he was actually _watching_ as an experienced hand wrapped itself around the base of his cock and the arm muscles flexed visibly in response.

"Fuck," he muttered breathlessly, letting his head fall back against the armrest, but just as he did the pleasure faded all at once. Darius was sitting up, unbuttoning the front of his own jeans. "Listen, I'm not going to…"

He trailed off as Darius pushed his jeans and boxers down his hips, not because he was startled by the size or the action or whatever else, but because _fuck,_ he never knew he could be so aroused at the sight of another male, by the defined abs beneath the scrunched black shirt, the apollo's belt that started from the hips and narrowed tantalizingly inward, the veins that became visible below the navel and continued downward to the head of an organ he had never imagined he would want so badly to touch.

He was glad that Darius didn't seem to notice his mouth hanging open, and the dazed look in his eyes. He was busy lining up their cocks so he could stroke both at once, and suddenly Garen understood; they didn't _have_ to go further to have sex, and Darius was doing it this way for his sake.

"You act like I don't also have wants and needs," he said, spitting on his hand to make himself slick before beginning. Even with a hand as big as his he couldn't quite hold everything, but the sensation of skin-on-skin, hard and throbbing against each other, was better than Garen ever would have imagined.

"Which was I?" he couldn't help but ask.

"After the look on your face when you came? A need. And you left me there to get off on the thought of you all by myself."

"Shit," Garen said, the pleasure rising the longer it went on. It didn't help that he was imagining what Darius must have done after he'd left: sprawled out naked on his bed with his eyes closed, his hand moving hard and fast. Because of him.

"That's what _I_ said."

"I want…I want to stay the night…here."

"What the fuck are you saying?"

He didn't answer, but the resolution was clear in his eyes. He had both his hands on the back of Darius's thighs now, clutching more needily with every second, certainly digging in through the denim and causing pain.

"Garen," Darius said, his voice low and labored by breaths that were becoming steadily more difficult. He moved his free hand to Garen's neck, caressing at first, and then pressed his thumb softly against the adam's apple as if to indicate that he was still dangerous, that he had never been trustworthy and it didn't make sense for Garen to start trusting him now. "Do you remember who I am?"

"Yes," he responded without hesitation, his air supply hampered but not completely cut off.

There was a mix of anger and affection in Darius's expression, a hint of weakness that was probably only seen once a decade or so, in the form of doubt in the opaque cloud of his eyes. He seemed unbreakable, but now Garen knew for sure that he wasn't so; he was human just like everyone else.

As Garen came, a moan broke through his lips, and he never broke eye contact even as his face contorted in pleasure. He made it impossible for Darius not to move his hand from neck to couch, brace himself, and follow suit. Soon they were watching each other with fond disbelief as their breathing slowed, and the sticky mess dripping from hand to exposed stomach became unignorable. Darius raised his hand, careful not to let the liquid drip anywhere else, and cleaned off what hadn't already landed on Garen's shirt with tissues from the box on the coffee table.

So _that's_ what it was there for. What Garen didn't know was that Draven lived here too, and _he_ had put it there because he shamelessly watched porn on their shared TV multiple times a day, when he was home.

"It would have been a lot easier if you had let me take off your shirt."

"I didn't trust you, asshole," Garen retorted, in a tone that was becoming increasingly casual the more they insulted each other. He grabbed another tissue and wiped off his shirt best he could.

"And you do now?"

He paused and looked at Darius as he thought about it, but there wasn't really much to think about. Trusting him now, after the unexpected consideration he'd demonstrated multiple times in the past two days, felt natural, but in retrospect it seemed strange that he should earn absolute trust just by exercising common human decency. There was something else going on here, something about the dynamic between them that made trusting him an uncontrollable instinct.

"I wouldn't let myself sleep in the presence of someone I didn't trust," Garen said plainly, and Darius cast him a sharp glance as he got up and moved into the kitchen, his jeans pulled up and re-buttoned.

"I thought you would forget about that stupid idea once you had regained your senses."

"Will you not let me?"

"Why the hell would I?"

"So you won't?"

"Fine, go ahead, idiot. I'm making sausages. Go to my room and stay there."

A satisfied smile found its way onto Garen's face. "I already ate," he mentioned as he stood.

"I wasn't making any for you anyways."

There were two closed doors, one on either side of the short hallway, and of course the open bathroom at the very end. "Left or right?"

"Right."

It was a plain, carpeted room with a queen-sized bed pushed into the corner, a shelved desk covered in papers and empty cans, and a pair of sliding doors concealing the closet. There were no decorations except for the clothes and crumpled papers scattering the floor. Surprisingly, it looked a little better than the living room, and it smelled like Darius, the leftover scent of his cologne lingering at a comfortable potency in the air.

The moment he shed his jeans and hit the bed he realized how tired he was, probably because he'd stayed up thinking and gotten very little sleep last night. He might have done the same tonight if he hadn't decided to stay here. Aloneness had a way of making one think, which inevitably led to regretting. Perhaps that was exactly what he was trying to avoid, without knowing it consciously.

He set the alarm on his phone early enough to let him return home before class began. Then he drifted in and out, waking when Darius sat down at his desk accompanied by the smell of warm sausages, and again a couple of hours later, when the light turned off and they lay together but apart, two bodies pushed to the very edges of the bed with an inch of space in-between. It would have been nice to close the gap, Garen thought. To sleep against the warmth of the person he'd chosen to stay with instead of denying that he was lying there as a result of anything other than selfish whim. But he fell asleep before he could persuade himself to take the chance.

At one point, in the middle of the night, Darius turned and clutched Garen's shirt in his sleep and made him just conscious enough to remember it in the morning. He didn't know what it meant. He figured he had probably dreamt it.


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning, as Garen stared at the ceiling and remembered where he was, he felt an odd mixture of contentment and distress. His first thought was that he shouldn't have been there. His second was that he was glad he was.

Darius was sleeping on his stomach with his arms wrapped around his pillow, which had turned slightly in Garen's direction. They were barely touching, though he was sure that they hadn't been when they'd fallen asleep. He was still lying on the edge. Darius had moved closer.

It was different, seeing him like this - without a scowl or a smile or anything but serenity on his face. He looked ordinary. He looked like the type of stranger you could strike up a conversation with without getting glared at and successively ignored. Garen hadn't noticed it before. The creases in his forehead, the tension in his smile - those weren't natural traits. They were the result of a pain or apprehension that had _become_ natural to him, simply by existing in him every day for as long as he could remember. They would likely return the moment he opened his eyes again.

Garen's phone was silent on the bedside table, so he sat up to turn off the impending alarm. It was exactly three minutes before the set time. The only way he wouldn't wake up before his alarm was if he was incredibly hungover. He was a creature of habit, he supposed, and the majority of his evenings ended at a reasonable time anyway.

It didn't occur to him that someone else in this apartment might have woken up early and tried to use the restroom at the same time as him. In the midst of a pounding headache and a plethora of muddled thoughts, he had forgotten that someone else might live in this apartment at all, so he left the door open, and as he washed his hands - in a sink that was fortunately free of lingerie - he looked up to meet eyes with a slightly younger, leaner Darius in the bathroom mirror, dressed in only a pair of dark blue briefs. The resemblance was too strong for them not to be related by blood, despite the light-hearted tune that he was whistling and the mustache gracing his upper lip. They had the same strong jaw, the thin, pursed lips, the piercing light green eyes.

However, Draven seemed far more easygoing, as he only paused in the hallway for a second before continuing past Garen into the bathroom, still whistling. It was as though Garen wasn't even there, until Draven started pissing in the toilet right beside him and asked, quite casually, "So, is he a good lay?"

All the blood traveled to his face in a matter of milliseconds, and his heart began to panic shortly afterward. This wasn't supposed to happen. Draven was the big talker. Draven wasn't supposed to know.

"How should I know?" he blurted out, though the look on Draven's face didn't say he was convinced. "We were working on a school project."

As he walked away he internally cursed himself. They had only been back in school for a single day. Not to mention there was only one bed in Darius's room, and the couch had remained empty that night.

Stupid! How could he have been so reckless and _stupid-_

"Don't worry," Darius muttered from where he lay, half-awake so his expression was tense, but hadn't yet regained its usual hatred of the world. "He won't speak a word unless I tell him to."

Garen had slammed the door behind him and was standing there against it, trying to calm himself down and believe whatever it was that Darius was claiming. He remembered being told that no one was home yesterday, but he also remembered falling asleep before hearing the front door open and close to indicate a new arrival. "Has he been here the entire time?"

"No. He comes home late. I told him to stop wasting so much time at parties and strip clubs and actually take school seriously for awhile, but he doesn't listen."

"You said that he would listen to you. That he wouldn't talk."

Darius turned onto his back, closed his eyes, and uttered, "He listens to me as long as it doesn't require him to give up women, porn, or booze. He's only seventeen and he's determined to waste his talent. Now stop nagging, fuckwad."

Garen swallowed his aggravation and picked his jeans up off the floor. He would have time to think about this later. "I need to go."

"Then go."

Something here was bothering him, and it wasn't just the insult. He couldn't fit images of last night in comfortably with what existed between them here and now. Darius acted like he didn't care. At least Katarina had kissed him goodnight and had midnight conversations with him. They had talked and laughed together; they had been friends with benefits, but they had also been friends, and he was pretty sure that the issue caused by the Christmas incident would be remedied with time.

Maybe he said it without meaning it, just to see if he could elicit any sort of reaction. He was angry and he wasn't exactly sure why. But either way, he said it. "I'm not coming back."

"Suit yourself," Darius responded, after a pause which wasn't quite long enough to make Garen think twice. "Just remember that I gave you the best blowjob you ever had."

He stood there in front of the door, disappointed without knowing he was disappointed, and pissed because _who cares_ if you know how to suck dick, if doing it meant nothing to you?

"What?" Darius muttered, looking at him. "You want another one?"

"Thank you for your hospitality," he said, pulling on his jeans and opening the door, and in one formal statement he had cancelled out all the intimacy they had once had by offering a mutual confirmation that it was both transient and meaningless.

At the front door of the apartment, he barely heard the footsteps in time to turn around as Darius met him face-to-face, boxers, bed-hair, and all. "You should come back."

"Why?"

Apparently that was the wrong question to ask, because Darius reacted with his usual hostility. The wrinkles were back, and the indignant scowl, the sharp voice. "Do whatever you want, shithead, but I like having you around."

Then he waited for Garen to leave, his hand resting on the edge of the open door, ready to close it.

In the end, Garen couldn't think of an adequate response, so he left it at that and walked away without looking back. When he heard the door close behind him, he felt something heavy and bothersome in his chest. He thought it might have been regret.

* * *

><p>Inside, Darius headed straight for the coffee pot. Draven was in the kitchen preparing breakfast for them both, still wearing solely his underwear. This was the usual routine, but most of the time Darius wasn't awake to see it; he would wake himself up with just enough time to shower and scarf down the entire plate on his way to the door.<p>

"Who's that, Dar?" his brother asked, cracking half a dozen eggs into the skillet. He had long since given up on trying to eliminate the pet names. "You've had quite a few guys in here, but you never walk them to the door."

"None of your business," he responded on instinct, despite the fact that he already knew he was going to tell. It was Draven, after all. They were the only two who knew everything about each other. Everyone else existed outside a barrier of secrecy and trust that they had always promised would never be broken. "His name is Garen. He's straight and he's hated me since our very first quarter."

Draven smirked, taking on a tone of feigned dramaticism. "_Ohh,_ the _throes_ of unrequited love!"

"Shut the hell up. I don't love him."

"You clearly like him."

By that time Darius had all but decided to tune out anything less than satisfactory to listen to. He grabbed the TV remote and sat down at the table, waiting for the coffee to boil. Returning to bed wasn't an option. Once he was up, he was up, no matter how badly he wished he wasn't.

"You managed to bang a straight guy? I'm impressed," Draven continued, but he received no answer. His brother's eyes were glued to one of those highly inaccurate medical shows where every doctor is as good as a sexually active comedian. "He's cute, y'know."

"Keep your filthy hands off."

"No promises."

"I'll cut off your dick while you're sleeping."

"See? You do like him."

He had liked him since the first time he'd seen him, and he thought that hadn't meant anything, because physical attraction was different from emotional attraction. They hadn't even spoken until they were forced to start brainstorming for the group presentation in class, but now that he thought about it, he remembered exactly the way Garen had introduced himself, with humble but certain confidence, and how he had helped the others grow comfortable in a matter of minutes to speak their minds and share ideas just by asking questions with a smile on his face.

He remembered the timid girl in the group who he caught staring over and over again, who would approach Garen right after class to ask him something about the project, but he never caught the hint. He remembered the skepticism with which Garen had regarded his own standoffish behavior, and the bewildered glare when they finished presenting. That had been the start of all this. It was his fault that Garen considered him a selfish monster.

So how was it that the past two nights had happened at all?

"You look like you're trying to burn a hole through the table with your eyes," Draven said, setting a plate of omelette and a mug of black coffee down in front of him. He realized that he wasn't even pretending to watch the TV anymore; he was staring blankly with his hands clasped in front of his lips.

"Is it rape if he enjoyed it so much that he came back the next day?"

"Shit, that's a loaded question. Technically it's rape until they explicitly say yes."

"You should have seen the look on his face."

Draven was grinning as he sat down to eat. Darius hadn't touched his food yet; in fact, he hadn't even acknowledged it.

"Would someone who really hates me that much kiss me willingly?"

"Only if he thinks you're hot as hell."

The truth was, that wasn't the answer Darius was looking for, but it helped nevertheless. It helped him realize that people are conflicted, and that physical attraction can be related to emotional attraction, or it can't be. Maybe people who were physically attracted asked questions so they could find out if they were emotionally attracted as well, and stay or leave depending on the result.

He felt a little sick. After all those questions, Garen had chosen the latter option.

And suddenly he remembered why it was better not to let people in, not even for a second. Once you gave them the power to destroy you, they would do it.

"Fuck him," Darius muttered, beginning to eat.

"You shouldn't give up so easily on something you care about. I thought you of all people should know that, Mr. Naggy Bitchface."

"He doesn't give a shit about me."

"How do you know?"

"He said he wasn't coming back."

"He's straight," Draven declared knowledgeably. "Or at least he thought he was. Just because he's confused as hell because he fucked a guy, it doesn't mean he's not going to change his mind and embrace it later."

That was the end of the conversation, if only because Darius was determined to believe that this whole thing was incontrovertibly over, for his own sake. He didn't want Garen to come back and get confused again. He didn't want to have to wonder if it was rape.

In class that day he kept his eyes forward, even as he left. He must have looked especially unapproachable, because nobody talked to him, not even Katarina. Most of his friends were in different fields of study, so he didn't see them much. He didn't mind, or at least, he had been telling himself he didn't mind for so long that he actually believed it.

He was a solitary creature, and he wanted to keep it that way, if only because there was no one else worth trusting in this world.

* * *

><p>The following week, Garen was invited to a house party by Lux, who heard about it from Ezreal, who was supposedly pretty well-acquainted with the guy who was throwing the party. He was one of those guys that everyone knows about but no one really <em>knows<em>. His name was Jayce, and from what Garen heard, he lived with his parents in a huge mansion which he held a party in every time his parents went out of town. The entire student body was invited, or rather, everyone in the student body who was someone enough to hear about it, to understand what kind of event of it was, and to still want to attend, which was only a small percentage.

As the Crownguard siblings drove around the enormous fountain in the center of the driveway and watched the white house loom over them, they understood perfectly how it could accommodate so many people, and that there must have been plenty of family employees ready to serve as a clean-up crew. Already, a man in a suit was approaching to offer them mandatory valet.

Garen regarded the mansion with bewildered scrutiny as he got out of the car, remarking, "Who is this guy, the 21st-century Gatsby?"

"I sure hope not, 'cause that would mean I'd never get to meet him," Lux responded, her eyes practically sparkling as she smiled up at the place, adjusting her dress. It was a flashy silver one-shoulder; probably she had been waiting for an opportunity to wear it all year, and she wasn't going to pass up this one because of the fading winter chill.

Garen, on the other hand, was still wearing shorts, tank, and hoodie from his visit to the gym earlier that day. He wasn't sure whether he had actually wanted to attend this party, but Lux had given him no opportunity to refuse. She was in a phase of insisting that he meet as many girls as possible, since Katarina was 'taking so long to come around'. He still hadn't told her about the Christmas present mix-up, and he wasn't sure he ever would, since it was her mistake and it would embarrass her immensely.

The doors were wide open, and they led into a picturesque marble-floored parlor with an enormous chandelier hanging overhead. There were plenty of students bustling around, mainly gawking, and enough open rooms for all of them to hang about comfortably. Lux headed straight forward into the dining area, her brother in tow, but once they arrived there she turned and said, "Okay, I'm gonna go. You sure you can find a ride home?"

"I'm sure. Don't let your eyes off your drinks."

"I know. See you!"

He was left alone beside the kitchen bar as Lux disappeared into the sea of people. Various appetizers filled the dining table nearby, though, predictably, most people were more interested in the alcohol. It appeared that the biggest crowd was outside in the backyard, which had another bar, a live DJ, and a pool which no one was swimming in quite yet. Once the average blood alcohol content of the partygoers rose high enough, people would start getting pushed in fully dressed, and then probably a mild fight would break out.

Just as he had finished his own gawking and turned around to get a drink, Jarvan pushed him in the shoulder. "Fancy seeing you here, handsome gentleman. Did you just come from the gym or what?"

"Yeah, actually. Lux dragged me along."

"Sisters, right?" he responded, though they were both perfectly aware he was an only child. "Anyway, you act like that's a bad thing. Look at this place! What's not to enjoy?"

Jarvan had a good point. Two years, or maybe even one year ago, Garen would have been thrilled to attend a party like this, but he supposed he had changed since then. He spent a lot more time on his own, and sometimes he contemplated what he actually wanted to do in his life. He had always been an introvert, but in high school he had actively participated in the social scene just to feel the thrill of being known and loved, because in his uncultured teenage mind, that had been the only thing worth accomplishing. He was known _now_ because his social habits hadn't worn off yet, not because he was making an active effort. All it really took was athletic involvement and a charming smile.

"Come on, there's a pool table in the other room and I'm on a winning streak," Jarvan said once they had their drinks, beckoning him over. "There's this girl in the corner who keeps smiling at me. She's a goddess, man. If I play it right, this could be the night of my life…"

Three games, ten drinks, and several dances with strangers later, Jarvan was stumbling toward the exit with his new lady and Garen hardly had the wits to remember that he needed to find a new ride home. It was getting to that time in the evening when nobody really knew what they were doing anymore, except the designated drivers, who were slowly but surely towing their half-conscious passengers to the car. The crowd had thinned to a much more comfortable level.

Outside, the DJ had retired for the night and left softer party music playing in the background. There were several swimmers, but mainly people slouching around the tiki bar. Quinn was sitting at one end with half a dozen empty glasses around her and a sour look on her face. At the other end, Darius was chatting with the current bartender - probably a student who'd offered to take over for some extra cash - looking stereotypically mean and decidedly sober.

When Garen had spotted Draven earlier, it had occurred to him that Darius might be there too, but he had been too preoccupied to think about it for long. His first instinct had been to think that he was too much of an antisocial asshole to want to come, but now it made sense that maybe he was Draven's DD. Now, looking at him, Garen didn't have a filter available to stop him from remembering everything that had happened, which he had tried his damnedest to ignore for this past week. In an instant he was fuming, because he thought that half-smile that had just appeared on Darius's face was a rarity, not a convention to be passed out at any old kid with a nice body and a conversation to share. He was too drunk to consider the aspect of sexuality; the bartender was more than likely straight as a board.

He charged over to that side of the bar. Darius noticed him just in time to have an accusing hand clasp his shirt at the shoulder.

"What are _you _doing here?" Garen scoffed.

"Am I not allowed to be at a party?"

It pissed him off how Darius wasn't even bothered, how a week straight of managing not to even glance at Garen in class ended in a glare that said it hadn't been purposeful, it had just happened that way because Garen wasn't worth noticing. This was exactly why he had distanced himself from the guy in the first place.

He simply didn't care about anyone but himself.

"C'mere, asshole, I have something to say to you," Garen demanded, because of course he wouldn't accept that conclusion.

Darius looked back over at the student bartender before standing up. "Sorry, Talon, I have unfinished business with this dumbass."

"No worries."

If Garen had been in his right mind, he wouldn't have decided it was necessary to have a private conversation somewhere in the midst of a mansion filled with peers. He probably wouldn't have approached Darius in the first place, and even if he had, he would have at least thought about what it was he wanted to say before dragging him into the nearest bathroom without even checking to make sure no one had seen.

But he wasn't in his right mind, and to tell the truth, he hadn't been for awhile. Not since he'd left the other's apartment a week ago with a voluntary promise not to return. He was still waiting for a reaction that he knew would never come; if he wanted one, he would have to demand it.

So he did. As they stood face-to-face in the spacious downstairs bathroom of a complete stranger's house, he locked the door behind him and demanded the answer he didn't want to hear.

"Tell me that you didn't feel anything."

"I felt nothing," Darius responded, sharply and without hesitance. It was like a blow to Garen's stomach, which had already spent the past week flattening itself on the inner wall of his back every time he so much as _remembered_ what had happened between them. He hadn't thought about what he would do if he actually received the answer he'd asked for. He hadn't thought about what he would do once Darius answered, period.

Luckily he didn't have to worry about being the only one at a loss for words, because just then the door handle rattled and a voracious fist tapped the other side of the door.

Both of them muttered 'shit' under their breath, and after a startled pause, Darius shouted, "Find another bathroom! I ate something bad."

"Now we have to _stay_ in here," Garen complained, since he had at least retained enough of his brainpower to realize that it was suspicious for the two of them to emerge from the bathroom together. If they were female, then maybe, but they were two grown-ass musclehead males who were supposed to hate each other.

"You're welcome, dumbass," Darius retorted. "Do you have a problem with it?"

"I do have a problem with it."

"It was _your_ idea to come in here."

It was also his idea to press the other's body against the wall with his own and kiss him, just to see if it would change his answer, but that didn't stop him from blaming the whole thing on Darius anyway. It _hadn't_ been his idea to dress up in women's lingerie and get his dick sucked by the unexpectedly sexy fuck who was supposed to hate him the most. It hadn't been his idea to let it happen it again, or to stop hating him just because he'd figured out there was more to him than an inexplicable loathing of the world. It still didn't make sense, this complete turnaround, but it was happening nonetheless. Garen _wanted_ him. Garen wanted to earn his trust, to learn everything there was to know about him, to understand, to love, to be loved.

Darius shoved him hard enough to make him fall back onto the toilet, or at least it _felt_ that hard.

"You taste like shitty wine and you can hardly stand up straight," he said, and in his scolding voice it almost sounded like there was genuine concern. "Go home."

"Can't," Garen muttered, suddenly realizing how easily he could fall asleep if he sat down for too long.

"Why?"

"My ride left me for a woman." He braced his arm on the counter to stand up, only to stumble straight into Darius, grab his shirt again, and glare at him accusingly. "Why did you push me, you piece of ass?!"

Darius took a guess that 'piece of ass' was an unintentional melding of 'asshole' and 'piece of shit', but took it as a compliment anyway.

"I'll find Draven and take you home," he sighed, making an attempt to hold Garen out at arm's length without letting him fall, and finding that it was impossible. Every time he tried to push Garen away, he came back to claw at his shirt and give comically threatening looks. Eventually he fell against Darius's shoulder and stayed there, head resting sideways as though he were falling asleep - and he probably was.

They said people were most honest when they were drunk. Darius didn't know if that applied to actions as well, but as his own arms hung limp at his sides and Garen clung to him willingly, he would have liked to believe it.

* * *

><p>The assigned reading that night was <em>The Prince<em> by Niccolò Machiavelli, or at least as much of it as Darius could get through until the presumed corpse laying beside him muttered, without forewarning, "Chartreuse," and he glanced over to find Garen staring happily at him instead of sleeping.

In the car he had either refused to give his address or was too drunk to understand the question, which was why he was here now.

"I had to take a painting class in high school," he continued, before Darius could ask why the hell he was blurting out the name of an expensive liqueur when he should have been asleep. "The standard paint set had this really ugly yellow-green called chartreuse. That's the color of your eyes."

He was offended until Garen turned onto his back, closed his eyes, and added, "You make it look nice, though."

The last time he had received a compliment, it had been on his 'mean right hook' at an MMA tournament. The time before that had probably been Draven, and the time before that, and the time before that.

_Rose,_ he would have said, if he planned on saying anything. _That's the color of your cheeks when you're drunk._

Instead, he set the book down on the bedside table, turned off the light, and lay down. This time Garen scooted up beside him and laid an arm across his chest. A quick glance revealed that he was still smiling like an idiot.

"I wanted to kiss you, but you pushed me," he complained. It took a couple of seconds for Darius to translate the slurred garble.

"Do you still want to?"

"Yeah."

Darius turned to peck his lips. They brushed together for a moment before Garen started to stick his tongue out, and Darius withdrew.

"Tease," Garen muttered.

"In the morning you'll be disgusted again."

"Will not."

"Yeah you will, straight boy."

"But I like you."

"No you don't."

Garen must have lost track of the conversation at that point, because he stopped responding and started snoring a minute later. The cycle of drunken emotions had been a marvel to witness: first anger, then passion, then unabashed affection.

_Could it be that being with me actually made him happy?_

It made _him_ happy, for a moment, to entertain that notion, but the reality was that Garen was drunk and didn't know what he was thinking. The reality was exactly as Darius had said. They would wake up and resume exactly where he had left off before the party. Garen wouldn't remember this conversation, or the color chartreuse. He would probably be pissed to find himself back here again.

He had read something by Machiavelli that night that made sense to him, even if he didn't like the fact that it did. It was possible that Garen actually did like him, judging by the choices he had made during their last several meetings. Even if he did, nothing could ever happen between them.

"_Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion."_


End file.
